76 
CONFERVACEiE. 
This species varies much in minor characters, but may generally he known by its 
lubricous substance, brilliant colour, fastigiate tufts, and straight, much branched fila- 
ments which radiate to every side from a common base, in a star-like manner. In the 
young plant the tufts are less dense, the filaments nearly free from each other to the 
very base ; but as the plant advances in age, root-like processes are developed along the 
lower part of the filaments, while the tufts become matted together, sometimes into a 
compact spongy frond. In very old specimens this condensation takes place throughout 
the whole length of the filament, except in the very youngest ramuli. The tufts are 
from two to four inches in height, hemispherical, or variously divided into two or more 
hemispherical or flabelliform lobes, and are generally level-topped. They are composed 
of many parallel, much branched, capillary filaments, of nearly equal diameter from base 
to apex ; the branches all very straight and erect, repeatedly but most irregularly 
divided, and set with lateral, erect, straight ramuli, which are nearly as robust as the 
branches from which they spring, and very obtuse. Toward the base of the filaments 
the articulations are once or twice as long as broad ; a little farther up they are three 
to four times ; and in the young branches and ramuli six to eight or twelve times as 
long as broad. In the state or variety called C. centralis they are uniformly short 
throughout except in the very young tips. The endochrome is dense and granular, and 
recovers its form on being moistened after having been dried. The colour in general 
is well preserved in drying, in which state the tufts retain much of their gloss, and 
closely adhere to paper. 
Authors have made several species out of what we regard as simply C. arcta in 
different stages. Thus C. vauchericeformis is the young, half-developed form ; C. arcta , 
Auct. the middle stage ; and C. centralis the old plant, where the matting together of 
the threads has been carried to an extreme point. Other species of Kiitzing’s section 
Spongomorpha might probably be added to these synonyms. A fragment of C. scopoe- 
formis, Rup. from Russian America, sent to me by Dr. Ruprecht himself seems to belong 
to one of the spongy forms of this species. C. arcta is perennial ; and specimens 
■ collected in the same locality at different seasons will be found to put on, successively, 
all the characters attributed to the three principal forms indicated above. 
6. Cladophora lanosa , Roth. ; tufts dense, globose, small, fastigiate, yellow-green ; 
filaments slender, irregularly much branched ; branches straight and virgate, erect, 
patent ; ramuli few, scattered, erect, straight ; axils acute ; articulations in the lower 
part twice, in the upper six to eight times as long as broad. Roth, Cat. Bot. 3, p. 291, 
t. 9. E. Bot. t. 2099. Lyngh. Hyd. Dan. t. 56. Kiitz. Sp. Alg. p. 420. Harv. 
Fhyc. Brit. t. 6. Wyatt , Alg. Danm. 194. 
Hab. On the smaller Algae, and on Zostera ; generally epiphytic. Boston Bay, Mr. 
G. B. Emerson, (v. v.) 
Tufts rarely more than an inch in diameter, globose, dense, formed of many filaments 
radiating from a common base. These filaments are at first separate, but at length by 
means of rooting processes issuing along their sides, they become somewhat interwoven 
